Rage [Video]

I've never played a game developed by id Software. Not Doom, not
Quake, not Wolfenstein, not nothing. I didn't play PC games much back when id was
more prolific, and I had a prejudice against overly gory shooters. To
me, they prioritized shock value over sound game
mechanics, kind of like Mortal Kombat. Considering their lasting appeal,
that was probably not my most sound judgment.

In my defense, id Software hasn't given me much to work with lately. The developer has only just this week released Rage, its
first major game since 2004's Doom 3. Rage had been building up a lot
of good press since its announcement back in 2007, earning plenty of
"most anticipated" awards from major media outlets
(yes, there are awards for such things). All the praise was a bit
perplexing to me, though: by all appearances, Rage seems like yet another competent
first person shooter with some car combat on the side.

But hey,
now I can say I've played an id Software game (or at least an hour of
it). Check out an early mission video below to see a short sample of
Rage's early goings.

My thoughts

- You gain control of your character after a two minute asteroid
apocalypse recap, but you don't get to shoot anything until the 12
minute mark. Oh, and there's a 20 minute installation of eight whopping gigabytes
beforehand. Rage would have you stare at the same dozen pieces of
concept art for that time, but why not go play a video game while you wait
for your video game to start?

- Technically, the game is a mixed bag on PS3. It always runs at a
welcome 60 frames per second, and load times are pretty quick, but I can't remember the last time I saw so much texture pop-in
(Halo 2 springs to mind). If you take a few steps forward and then
stop, you can actually watch nearby objects gradually gain
detail, sometimes upgrading textures twice in one place.

Textures one, two, and three, each swapping in half a second after the last.

And
it's not like the game's scale is especially vast: each area is
self-contained, and even the Wastelands that hinted at a more open-world
game are comparable in size to Ocarina of Time's Hyrule Field.
Seriously, there is a bandit hideout right across the street from the
good guys. I bet they sometimes get each others' mail.

- There isn't much to say about the actual shootouts, as pretty much
everything there is par for the course. Enemy AI and animations are
certainly better than average, with foes bounding over couches and
sliding into cover and even retreating when outmatched to bolster ranks
elsewhere, but it doesn't really change the nature of the FPS beast
we've grown so familiar with. Pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, aiming
down the sights, grenades, head shots, regenerating health, et cetera.
There are apparently four(?) different ammo types for each of the
four(?) guns, but the only extra ammo I've found thus far are "fatboy"
slugs that transform your standard pistol into a powerful magnum.
Stealth was encouraged early on, but the gray people seem to have eyes
in the back of their heads, and once any of them catch a glimpse of you,
your position is immediately known to all.

- The meticulous hideouts and carved canyon Wastelands are a credit to
the game's environment artists. There aren't a lot other games that
depict a post-apocalyptic future that is at once gritty and pretty,
alien and believable. It's all thanks to the little considerations, like
the short cave I found that led to a latrine underneath a bandit
stronghold. However, the attention to detail amplifies some of Rage's
"gamey" qualities that just kill the immersion, foremost being the
stubbornly unmoving world. I'll be the first to say that knocking tables
and boxes around rarely adds anything to a game, but it's just so
strange to see a desk lamp completely ignore a shotgun blast these days,
or to watch a pile of stones stay stationary while being trampled on.
It's like the entire landscape was carved from a single piece of clay by
a master artist: it all looks fantastic from afar, but you can
practically see the seams connecting the ceramic vase to the top of the
wooden cabinet up close.

- Going in, I didn't know much more about Rage's story than "post
apocalyptic mutant kill-thon." After playing an hour of playing the
game, I may know even less than when I began. I woke up from a hundred year
nap. I was attacked by a gray person and saved by John Goodman. Then he
drove me back to his five person "settlement" and told me to kill more
gray people. Who is my character? Who are the other humans? How did the
evil gray people become so evil and gray and British? Why am I being
sent to wipe them out by myself minutes after I've just awakened from
cryogenic sleep? Never before have I been so angry at a silent
protagonist for not opening his mouth. A little mystery isn't bad, but
in sixty minutes Rage hasn't even offered a clue that any of these
questions might eventually get answers. And without any context, the
characters and setting and conflicts that all show some promise are hollow.

- A lot of great games decelerate near the end thanks to obligatory fetch quests right before the endgame. Rage apparently bucks this trend
by cramming them all right into the beginning of the game. "You just
woke up! Go kill some gray people for me." "Want a gun? Bring back some
medical supplies." "I'll let you have your own buggy if you go gather
the parts." "A friend got lost. Go find him and I'll teach you how to
make Band-Aids." There isn't even a story yet, and the side characters
are already making me do their chores, trekking back and forth through
the Wastelands enough times that the beauty of their orange peaks has
already turned humdrum.

- The most memorable takeaway from the game so far? The auto-defibrillator. When you die, you play a ten second minigame with
the control sticks and triggers, zapping yourself back to life and
shocking nearby enemies. It apparently has its limits, but it did wipe
away a mistake or two that I made in the heat of battle.

Minutes to Action: 12

Would I keep playing? Probably not. The entire hour was spent
shuttling myself back and forth across a pretty landscape, scouring the
gorgeous static details of the environment for whatever doodad was on my
arbitrary to-do list and shooting the naked gray Brits who charged my
way. Rage's colorful post-apocalyptic scenery looks the part of a notable game, but the rest of the experience barely flirts with mediocrity and desperately needs some clever gameplay
hook or a character to latch onto. I'm still deciding whether to keep
playing until I see what the car combat is about or to just shelve the
game right now, but I'm tipping towards the latter in this
pre-holiday avalanche of hit games.